Liberals’ electoral reform survey silent on alternative systems

Days after blasting a Commons committee for failing to offer alternative voting system, Monsef launches a survey that doesn’t mention alternative voting systems.

Thestar.com
Dec. 5, 2016
By Alex Boutilier

Days after blasting a parliamentary committee for failing to recommend an alternative voting system, Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef launched an electoral reform survey that doesn’t mention alternative voting systems.

Monsef officially launched mydemocracy.ca Monday, part of the government’s efforts to “engage” Canadians on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pledge to replace the 149-year old first-past-the-post system by the 2019 election.

The survey asks around 30 general questions, but at no point directly addresses the first-past-the-post system, which critics say skews the popular vote to allow parties to form majority governments without a majority of Canadians’ support.

Nor does it discuss the two main alternatives offered: ranked ballots, where voters list candidates by order of preference, or a proportional model where the MPs in the House of Commons more closely reflect the popular vote.

“We all agree in the House that not enough Canadians are engaged in this conversation,” Monsef said during Question Period Monday.

“Fifteen million households have received an invitation in the mail asking them to be part of this historic conversation.”

Monsef went on the attack last Thursday after an all-party committee recommended a national referendum pitting the status quo, first-past-the-post, against a proportional system of the Liberals’ own design.

The minister said she was “disappointed” in the committee for not recommending a specific system to replace first-past-the-post, which was not what the government asked the committee to do.

Monsef apologized for her attack Friday, saying she appreciated the committee’s hard work.

But the new survey, which Monsef said had 8,000 responses by Monday afternoon, is unlikely to get the government closer to a specific alternative. None of the questions address alternative systems explicitly, and many focus on online and mandatory voting - two issues the parliamentary committee ruled off the table at this time.

Instead, it asks a number of questions about respondents “values,” putting respondents into one of five categories at the conclusion of the survey.

Scott Reid, the Conservative critic for democratic reform, told the Star that he doesn’t think that seeking out more general sentiment is useful.

“To go out and try to move in the direction of more generality and less specificity, at this stage in the process, can only mean (the Liberals) are trying to increase (their) margin for manoeuvre, so you can ignore the input you’ve received before hand,” Reid said in an interview.

“The government is trying to find a way of producing some survey that it can then contort into its predetermined preference for ranked ballots.”

“The first rule of engagement the Liberals should learn is not to treat Canadians like they are stupid,” NDP democratic reform critic Nathan Cullen said.

“Yet today, we see a pop-psych survey from the minister, and there is no mention of electoral systems whatsoever. Almost 90 per cent of everyone who spoke to the committee recommended a proportional voting system. Yet the minister cannot even bring herself to put the word ‘proportional’ in her survey.”

Trudeau, speaking to the Star’s editorial board on Friday, recommitted his government to devising a new system by 2019.

“I make promises because I believe in them,” Trudeau said.

His comments came a day after the Liberal minority on the all-party electoral reform committee called the pledge overly rushed, and criticized some of the report’s recommendations as too “radical.”